WHO KILLED KURT COBAIN?

Twenty years after his death questions remain

With 2014 marking the 20th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s suicide, New York Times bests elling author Ian Halperin, co- author of Love&Death: The Murder ofKurt Cobain looks at the Nirvana frontman’s death and asks…

To say that Kurt Cobain was the last veritable music icon is, by now, an understatement. No musician since Cobain passed 20 years ago has been able to influence a generation, duplicate the unending gossip, adoration, and analysis Cobain remains the subject of.

Everyone I talked to who in the past 20 years that was close to Cobain said Kurt always wanted to be famous. When he nally got his wish in 1 1, it was and wasn’t what he’d expected. At the height of Nirvana’s success, Kurt clearly identi ed with his favourite Beatle, John Lennon, who knew as well as anybody the price of fame. Kurt drew similarities to Lennon regarding his ascension to fame in an interview with Rolling Stone: “I don’t know who wrote what parts of what Beatles songs, but Paul McCartney embarrasses me. Lennon was obviously disturbed… I just felt really sorry for him… his life was a prison. He was imprisoned. It’s not fair. That’s the crux of the problem that I’ve had with becoming a celebrity – the way people deal with celebrities.”

The next chapter in Cobain’s short life was to invite new comparisons between himself and his musical idol. When George Harrison was asked how he rst met Yoko Ono, he replied, “I’m not sure. All of a sudden she was just there.” Kurt’s band-mates, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, would tell similar stories in later years about the bleached blonde who started to appear at Kurt’s side shortly after Nevermind was released. Perhaps that’s why Grohl and Novoselic both called her Yoko – at least behind her back.

From the start, it was a dangerous experiment. It seemed like a mismatch of personalities. But against the odds, the more laid-back Cobain and the outspoken, free-spirited Courtney Love were the golden couple of the entertainment industry. Quickly, she turned Kurt’s world upside down.

The rst time Cobain spotted Love, he thought she looked like Nancy Spungen, the girlfriend of Sex Pis- tols bassist Sid Vicious. Courtney liked that. For several years, she had been obsessed with the infamous bleached blonde whose life so closely paralleled her own. A few years before she met Kurt, Courtney had even auditioned to play the lead in Alex Cox’s lm biopic Sid And Nancy and, although failing to land the role, ended up playing the smaller part of Nancy’s best friend, Gretchen.

Even during their relationship’s nest hour, in 1 2,

AT THE HEIGHT OF NIRVANA’S SUCCESS, KURT CLEARLY IDENTIFIED WITH HIS FAVOURITE BEATLE, JOHN LENNON, WHO KNEW AS WELL AS ANYBODY THE PRICE OF FAME

it would be a stretch to describe Kurt and Courtney’s home life as domestic bliss. Screaming matches and lots of drug use was prevalent in the couple’s home.

As tributes have poured in these past few weeks to commemorate the 20th anniversary of rock icon Kurt Cobain’s death, information shedding new light on Cobain’s nal days alive and his relationship with his wife Courtney Love has emerged.

According to a former friend of the Nirvana frontman, Kurt called him several days before his body was found sounding very afraid. “His voice was frail and he sounded desperate,” the friend revealed. “He told me he thought someone was out to get him. When I asked him who, he said he couldn’t tell me over the phone but that

he would tell me more when I saw him in person.”

The friend revealed that Kurt also told him his marriage to Hole star Courtney Love was over and that he was looking forward to a new start.

“He sounded like he was trying to get out of a big jam,” the friend revealed. “But he didn’t sound like he wanted to end his life. He told me his marriage to Courtney was all but over and that he was looking to taking a break from music and getting a new start.”

The friend’s story provides more corroboration to secret tape recordings by the private investigator Courtney Love hired to nd Kurt after he went missing from an L drug rehab centre ve days before Kurt’s body was found. In Grant’s secret tapes, Courtney admitted that things were not going well in their highly publicised marriage. She told Grant about her recent ghts with Kurt, resulting from his decision not to play that summer’s Lollapalooza tour, passing up an estimated $9 million.

“We (Hole) could have f***ing played Lollapalooza and gotten the cash; that’s the part that p****s me off,” Courtney told Grant. “I mean he would have got $9.5 million, and I would have only got about $100,000, but at least I would have sold some records, and now he’s f*****g that up.”

In the recordings Courtney and Grant discussed the PI’s retainer. “I mean, money is a problem if we get a divorce and I don’t have my publishing deal, but that’s not going to happen for quite some time.”

Kurt’s friend also accused Courtney of planting the idea to the world that Kurt may have been suicidal when she led a missing person’s report to the Seattle Police Department using a false name.

“She led the report pretending to be Kurt’s mother Wendy,” the friend said. “Filing a false police report is illegal. For some reason Courtney wanted to cover her tracks and convince the world Kurt was suicidal.”

The friend suggests the biggest misconception about Kurt in the weeks leading up to his death was the Rome incident a few weeks before he died, which Courtney Love described as a failed suicide attempt. Kurt was reported to have taken champagne mixed with the prescription tranquiliser called Rohypnol, better known in the US as ‘the date rape drug’. Courtney’s PI Tom Grant claimed, “I think that Courtney mixed Rohypnol into Kurt’s drink to induce an overdose. I rmly believe this was her rst attempt to kill him.” Grant’s theory was corroborated by a

“HE TOLD ME HIS MARRIAGE TO COURTNEY WAS ALL BUT OVER AND THAT HE WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO TAKING A BREAK FROM MUSIC AND GETTING A NEW START”

later report stating that Rohypnol was in fact Courtney’s prescription, not Kurt’s. fter Kurt’s death, the British music magazine Select con rmed that one of its reporters interviewed Courtney in her London hotel room on March , hours before she ew to Rome to see Kurt. The article stated Courtney con rmed to the magazine the Rohypnol was hers. “Look, I know this is a controlled substance,” she said to the journalist, downing a glass of zzy upset stomach powders in a tumbler of water before washing back a Rohypnol. “I got it from my doctor. It’s like Valium.”

In an exclusive interview, the doctor who treated

Kurt in Rome denied it was a suicide attempt. “We can usually tell a suicide attempt,” Dr Osvaldo Galletta said. “This didn’t look like one to me.”

After Kurt died, Galetta told the media, “The last image I have of him, which in the light of the tragedy now seems pathetic, is of a young man playing with the little girl (Frances). He did not seem like a young man who wanted to end it all.”

Courtney’s own entertainment attorney, Rosemary Carroll, stated more than once she didn’t believe Kurt killed himself. She was suspicious of a piece of paper she found in Courtney’s backpack in which somebody is practising different handwriting styles. On each line, the person wrote different forms of all the letters in the alphabet, much like a schoolgirl’s handwriting exercise primer. But the handwriting was clearly written in the style of an adult – not a child. On the top right-hand side of the page, in a section marked “combos”, the person wrote two and three letter combinations. Tom Grant later said: “Rosemary found it among Courtney’s things. It sure looked to us like she had been practising how to forge a letter.”

Kurt’s friend thinks the note found in Courtney’s backpack was linked to Kurt’s alleged suicide note. “If you look at the last few lines of Kurt’s note it was clearly in a different handwriting,” he said. “Never once in the note did Kurt mention suicide. I think it was a letter to his fans that he was quitting the music industry, not life.”

Clearly, there remain many unanswered questions about how Kurt really died. Perhaps many of these questions will be answered in the upcoming lm Soaked In Bleach, in which Tom Grant served as a consultant. Until then, the world is left with an amazing music legacy left by rock music’s last icon that managed to in uence an entire generation. It seems clear that at the time of his death,

CLEARLY, THERE REMAIN MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW KURT REALLY DIED

Kurt was determined to start a new life without Courtney. Kurt wanted out. Their prenuptial agreement, which ensures Courtney would not have access to Kurt’s millions if he divorced her, certainly provides a motive to have Kurt killed. At the very least, Courtney - nally has a lot of questions to answer and a lot of explaining to do. The sheer volume of people who believe she killed Kurt does not make it true. But for some unknown reason she refuses to answer any questions about her suspicious role when Kurt died. Until she steps up and addresses what really happened she will continue to be a prime suspect in the death of her husband.

Sadly, there have been over 150 copycat suicides since Kurt died. If Grant is right that he didn’t commit suicide the families of the victims are owed a proper explanation to how he really died. An exclusive interview with the person closest to Kurt before he died, his grandfather Leland Cobain, revealed in a 2012 interview that he was convinced the Seattle Police got it wrong.

“My grandson was not suicidal,” Leland said. “I believe somebody killed him. And the person who had him killed was close to him. The only thing I want to do before I die is to get this case reopened and to see granddaughter Frances.” Sadly, Leland died in 2013 without having ever met Frances Bean.